“A collection of profound and epic album reviews and musical articles by former astronaut and brain surgeon, Alasdair Kennedy. Reaching levels of poetry that rival Keats and Blake, the following reviews affirm Alasdair to be a prodigy, a genius and a god whose opinion is always objectively right. He is also without a doubt the most modest man in the universe.” - Alasdair Kennedy

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Friday, 6 June 2014

Review of 'Clppng' by Clipping

Cali
group, Clipping, are an experimental hip hop act with elements of industrial
noise and Death-Grips-style abrasiveness thrown in. Unlike Death Grips, their
emcee, Daveed Diggs, takes a traditional, clean style of rapping (i.e. no angry
shouty hobo vocals). The crazy intensity and experimentation is mainly in the beats.
Highlights include the minimalistically ambient track ‘Dream’, which rolls
straight into the track ‘Get up’ literally featuring an alarm clock bleep as an
instrumental. Then there’s the second track, ‘Body and Blood’, which has a menacing
industrial Gesafflestein vibe to it. The beats are less noisy than on Clipping’s
debut, Midcity, which was too harsh
for me in most parts. They feel more creative and varied this time round.

Worth noting
even more than the instrumentation is Daveed Diggs’ delivery. Although by no
means as experimental as the beats, there are still some extremely original
ideas being thrown around such as the flows on ‘Story 2’ that constantly keep morphing
to match the ever-changing timing of the beat. The eery whispered chorus on ‘Dream’
also sticks out. Who whispers a chorus? Most impressive however is the speed
and precision that Daveed Diggs pulls out on this record. If the first track of
Midcity didn’t already wow you, then the
lightning speed of this album’s ‘intro’ track certainly will.

There
are moments on here that I’m not completely down with. ‘Tonight’ featuring
Gangsta Boo contains an auto-tuned chorus. I already expressed my views on Auto-tune
in my review of Future’s lastest album ‘Honest’. To put things mildly, I’m not
a fan. The closing track – a noisy mish-mash of excerpts from the album cut and
clipped together – also drags on a little too long for my liking. It’s a creative
touch but isn’t pleasant on the ear and could be made more succinct.

With
these issues in mind, I shouldn’t really give the album a full score. However,
part of me is so impressed by the originality of this record that I feel I can
overlook these two moments. Clppng might
just be the most original album I hear this year! Not only does it challenge my
perceptions of music, it also feels a suitable length, showcases impressing musical
talent both in production and rapping ability and succeeds in invoking a
whirlwind of emotions in me – the most important being suspense. The first time
I heard this record was at 4am and it was such a surreal, mindblowing
experience I thought I’d dreamt it the next morning. Repeated listens keep
offering me new insights (I forgot to mention that the lyrics here are pretty
inventive too) showing that this album also has playback value. Basically, in a nutshell, this album is straight up awesome.